


Finding the Path

by rememberwhenyoutried



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 04:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rememberwhenyoutried/pseuds/rememberwhenyoutried
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you're going to fall into the woods somehow, you may as well visit the benevolent witch while you're there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding the Path

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feralphoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/gifts).



> A Ladystuck 2013 pinch-hit prompt.
> 
> Prompt: I'd like to see an AU centering around Jade as the archetypal mysterious-but-benevolent witch in the woods fairytale figure, helping out or giving advice to various questants and heroes whose journeys take them up to and past her doorstep! Beyond witch being Jade's in-game class, she's a very good judge of character and isn't afraid to give a blunt diagnosis or a shove in the right direction.
> 
> As far as Jade's visitors go, I at least want to see Calliope and Vriska, but you may add as many other ladies as you like!

arachnidsGrip [AG] began trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA]  
  
AG: I want you to know I'm only contacting you to let you know you were wrong.  
AG: My pir8ing career is off to a great start!  
AG: I hijacked aaaaaaaall the ships, the 8ooty is mine!!!!!!!!  
GA: Really  
GA: Those Suborbital Cargo Shuttles That Were Just On The News  
GA: Was That You  
AG: Yeah!!!!!!!!  
AG: I just mind controlled the idiot low8lood pilots into landing and then I made them walk the plank!  
AG: It was so gr8, you should have seen it.  
GA: No Thank You  
GA: I May Have Given Up On Moderating Your Murderous Tendencies Long Ago But That Still Doesnt Mean I Want To See It  
GA: So What Sort Of Insane Loot Did You Rake In  
GA: That Was Your Stated Plan Was It Not  
AG: Well........  
AG: I don't know yet! I can't open the cargo holds, they're command coded.  
AG: The seals on the hatches are un8roken.  
GA: Maybe You Should Have Asked One Of The Pilots Before You Made Them Play Your Silly Pirate Plank Game  
AG: I'll just tow them home and 8low them open. Or get that sweaty loser to help me. It'll 8e easy!!!!!!!!  
GA: I Am Not Sure It Will Be As Easy As All That  
GA: The Rancourwoman Just Said Those Shuttles Contained A Precious Cargo Of Some Sort  
GA: And That Whoever Hijacked Them May Be Facing The Legislacerators  
AG: Let them come!  
AG: The legislacerators are a joke and we 8oth know it.  
AG: Okay I've got them hooked up to my ship, I'll have them 8ack at my hive in just a minute.  
GA: I Still Dont Know What Youre Trying To Achieve Here  
GA: Piracy Is An Inherently Risky Business  
GA: A Troll Of Your Blood Color And Disposition Would Be Perfectly Suited To A Lifetime Of Blowing Up Forking Incinerating And Otherwise Inconveniencing Whomever The Condesce Decides She Doesnt Like  
GA: As Much As The Service Itself Is Distasteful At Least Youre In Solid Employment And Meeting New People  
GA: I Am Due To Begin My Training In The Caverns Soon And From Then I Can Anticipate Many Hundreds Of Sweeps In The Dark Tending To The Mother Grubs  
GA: And While I Am Fond Of The Mother Grubs In Principle They Will Be An Undoubtedly Grim Reminder Of My Lusus Who Is Due To Die Soon  
GA: As You Know Virgin Mother Grubs Do Not Live Very Long  
GA: And Her Death Will Be Doubly Sad As When It Comes I Will Have To Go Into Service  
GA: I May Never See The Light Again  
GA: Vriska Are You There  
GA: You Have Gone Uncharacteristically Silent  
AG: Yeah.  
AG: Yeah, I'm here.  
AG: I just got the first cargo hold open.  
AG: I've got to get out of here.  
GA: Why  
AG: I haven't got time to talk a8out it. Here.  
  
arachnidsGrip wants to send file FUCK!!!!!!!!.tpg  
  
GA: Oh  
GA: Vriska  
GA: If I Am Not Mistaken  
GA: And Looking At This Cargo Of Tacky Gold Jewelry Giant Pink Baths And Tridents I Do Not Think That I Am  
GA: You Have Stolen Cargo Meant For The Condesce  
AG: Yeah, tell me a8out it!!!!!!!!  
GA: Vriska Youre  
GA: You Are Going To Die  
AG: No, I'm going to run.  
AG: I have a way off the planet.  
GA: What  
GA: How Far Off Planet  
GA: Are We Talking An Inevitably Doomed Run At The Orbital Defense Network Or  
AG: Of course not!  
AG: Who do y8u think I 8m!!!!!!!!  
AG: It doesn't involve spaceships or transportalizers or anything.  
AG: I found it last year. It can take us a long way from here!  
GA: Are You Really Telling The Truth  
AG: Why would 8 choose NOW to lie to you????????  
GA: Then Take Me With You  
GA: I Cannot Go To The Brooding Caverns  
GA: It Will Be The End Of Me  
AG: I don't get it!  
AG: Why do you want to go on the run with a pir8 you h8?  
AG: You'v8 g8t a perf8ctly good l8fe w8ing for y8u!  
GA: I Dont  
GA: I Lied  
GA: My Lusus Has Been Dead For Three Perigees  
GA: And I Have Her Matriorb  
GA: She Asked Me To Take It Somewhere It Will Never Be Found  
GA: And Raise Trolls Out Of Reach Of The Condesce  
GA: I Agreed  
GA: When The Other Jades Find Out I Have No Intention Of Turning It Over To Them They Will Summon The Threshecutioners  
GA: I Am Just As Much Of An Outlaw As You  
GA: They Just Dont Know It Yet  
AG: Gog d8mn, Maryam.  
GA: So Are We Doing This  
AG: Fuck it.  
AG: Why not????????  
AG: Meet me at these coordin8s and we'll fall through the world together.  
GA: We Will What  
AG: You'll see!!!!!!!!  
  
arachnidsGrip [AG] ceased trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA]

~

In the woods beyond the void there was a tower, a crumbling tower of broken stone and rotted wood, long uninhabitable by all but the birds who flew laps around its limitless height and the spiders who spun their webs in its infinite recesses. It was a place of ancient power, of magic so complex and powerful it was almost unknowable. It was said that no-one had seen its full extent because it was always surrounded by clouds that swirled in uncomfortably geometric shapes, although there was almost no-one around any more to see it.

Jade Harley, who had lived for a hundred years in a ramshackle cottage abutting its base, liked to hang washing lines from it.

Her familiar, a large and rather lethargic crow, lazily swatted at her as she took down the last of her laundry.

“Why are you even bothering to wash these clothes, is what I’m wondering,” the crow said. “It’s not like we ever have company, this is like the last outpost of civilization before the land of the giant purple tentacles, who wants to even go there, no-one, that’s who, so we get no visitors and nothing ever happens except you continually cleaning your shit for an audience of nobody but us birds, we don’t even care, have you even seen what we do up in those trees? Shit’s nasty, we’ve got no reason to look down on someone for being a bit crusty, go on, let yourself go.”

Jade batted at it. “Someone’s coming,” she said. “Two someones, actually. Important someones! Or, I guess, someones who could be important if they do the right thing. Or get to the right place!”

“Okay, fine, as good a reason as any to break out the fine china and make sure the floppy witch hat still flops, sorry for trying to tempt you down the path of ill hygiene.”

“I have a job for you!” Jade said, bundling the clothes up under her arm and starting back towards the cottage. “Get the other birds together and make sure the path is clear.”

“And what if it’s not?”

Jade reached the front door to the cottage. “Then _clear it_. I need some quiet so I can see these people properly.”

With that she slammed the door shut. Her familiar stared at it for a few moments, gave the bird equivalent of a shrug, then flew off to raise an army of crows.

~

Cally Opey’s time was nearly up. She saw her other self everywhere she looked: what had started in the darkest corners of the night as the faintest suggestion of a monstrous form had solidified over the years into a hulking green beast which lurked behind her in every mirror, waited for her in every shadow, and haunted her dreams at night. She was sleeping longer than ever, and waking in strange places. This last month her time awake had amounted to just five hours per day. Surely it would not be long before the monster took her over completely.

She was only sixteen. It wasn’t fair.

She’d tried everything. The alchemists couldn’t help her. The techno-mages dismissed her and, she suspected, laughed at her behind her back. The king’s sorcerer herself had called her mad. And many a doctor was all too willing to diagnose her with something expensive, requiring much solitude at their exclusive rest homes.

She was down to her last chance. A rumor, and a silly one at that, but it was all she had left. There was a place, it was said, in the village just outside the city, that if you looked at it from just right angle ceased to be a brick wall and became a dense, dark wood. Cally, all practical solutions exhausted, all local magicians contemptuous, was ready to grasp at anything magical she could find.

She flagged down a clockwork carriage, pushed coins into the slot on the metal horse’s back, and selected her destination.

“Here goes bloody nothing,” she sighed.

~

Jade Harley, squinting through her squared fingers at a thousand possibilities, grunted, and stood up. The long wooden table in the cottage’s front room was already laid for two people. She walked on unsteady legs—looking through the universes always took it out of her—and fetched a third set of cutlery.

~

It really had been absurd to assume they’d had any chance at all. Really, what had they been thinking? Even without the generic smorgasbord of superpowers she seemed to have acquired at some point between their initial intelligence gathering and their final confrontation—but really, hadn’t Rose known anyway? She always knew, had always been able to see their path through this world and see that hers ended here, right here—she would have been unstoppable. _With_ , well...

Her shield spell failed, reducing the wand in her left hand to ash, and a hurled trident found her shoulder, knocking her back. In agony, it was growing harder to concentrate, and she got a shield up on her remaining wand only just in time to deflect a second trident, aimed at her face.

Rose Lalonde versus the Batterwitch. There was only one way it was ever going to end. At least she’d go to her grave—not that she’d get one, she mused—remembering the look on her ecto-brother’s face when she dropped him through the fenestrated pane, away from the battle, to safety.

Only one of them had to die today. Shame it had to be her, but it definitely wasn’t going to be him, too.

Debris rained on her shield and it flickered over her head. She gave in to the effort of maintaining it and the weight of the trident in her left shoulder, and fell.

She looked back on her life and found it satisfying. Not exactly enjoyable, not knowing what was coming, but she saw, in the most vague sense, her distant daughter, able to grow up in safety. Able to fulfill her destiny.

Plus she’d gotten to ride Chaplain Fieri down a waterfall.

Rose could die content.

The cat—that appallingly powerful and unpredictable guardian creature apparently firmly under the control of the Batterwitch—leapt at her and clawed at her shield, ripping through it as if it were a soap bubble. Rose had time to look up at the smug face of the troll empress before the cat was on her, claws at her throat.

“A shame,” Rose muttered, looking the thing in the eye. “I’ve always been a cat person.”

The god animal seemed to look back at her for a long moment, flickered slightly, and then Rose was gone and the Condesce was alone on the plateau.

~

Jade was interrupted in the act of setting a fourth place at the table by a muffled thump on the front door of the cottage. It was her familiar’s way of letting her know it was there: to fly at something approaching maximum speed at the door and brain itself on the wood.

As she opened the door she reflected that she should never have granted it familiarhood; the increased lifespan and durability it granted had given the crow a reckless edge that bordered on the suicidal.

“What is it?” she said to the bird, now prone on the doormat.

“The path is clear, all the monsters and demons and huge bat things are obviously taking a chill day,” it said. “Aren’t you going to help me up?”

Jade rolled her eyes and pretended she was about to shut the door.

“Okay, fine, whatever, I’m cool, I’m up, shit, what’s even wrong with you that you won’t give alms to a poor helpless bird. Actually don’t give arms to a bird, that’d be downright upsetting, don’t even think about it, can you imagine?” The crow kept up its mumbled stream of consciousness as it hopped inside. “I’m imagining it right now and it’s a horrible sight, I’m telling you, my gog, what hath science wrought? Oh hey, four place settings, how many people are coming today, honestly, questants are like buses, you wait thirty years for one and you get four turning up at once.”

“How do you know what a bus is?”

“I don’t know, the universal resonance of ideas? Okay, you caught me, I look in your cauldron when you’re sleeping.”

Jade threw a book at it.

~

arachnidsGrip [AG] began trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA]  
  
AG: Where did you land?  
GA: I Am Stuck In A Tree  
GA: It Is Not Dignified  
GA: The Branches Are Poking Me  
GA: The Matriorb Is Okay Though The Future Of Our Race Is Still Assured  
GA: So  
GA: You Know  
GA: Good  
AG: Stop ram8ling and tell me where you are! I don't like the look of these woods.  
GA: How Can You Not Like The Woods Isnt Your Lusus Literally A Giant Spider That Eats People  
GA: Are You Not By Definition The Scariest Thing In Any Given Set Of Woods  
GA: Oh No A Spider Troll Come To Feed Me To Her Enormous Monster Parent  
GA: Isnt That You  
GA: And Yes Of Course I Am Rambling I Go On Like This When Im Nervous  
GA: For Some Reason Dropping Through A Weird Glitch In The Side Of A Hill Into A Wood That Wasnt There A Moment Before Has Put Me A Little On Edge  
AG: Are you finished exercising your speaking flaps?  
AG: I can see you. I'm coming to cut your tree down.  
GA: What No  
AG: Don't panic, it'll 8e fine. Just ride it down.  
AG: It's just like in the trial caverns when we were young. Except even easier 8ecause there are no spikes at the 8ottom!  
AG: Hang in there, this might take a few swings.  
AG: What's your plan, anyway, now you've escaped with the Matrior8?  
AG: I mean I didn't have one, 8ut that's ok, all I needed was to get away and I've succeeded magnificently at that, as expected.  
AG: 8ut now here you are, you've got a 8illion potential trolls all in a 8ig ugly 8all in your 8ag, and where are you taking them?  
GA: I Dont Know This Was All Very Last Minute  
GA: And Stop Needling Me While Im Stuck Up A Tree  
GA: Im Plenty Needled Already By My Own Subconscious And Well My Conscious Too  
AG: Huh, I thought you were going for a tree joke there.  
GA: What  
GA: Oh  
GA: Just Get Me Down  
AG: I'm on it. Get ready.  
AG: TIM8ERRRRRRRR!  
GA: Ow  
GA: You Could Have Caught Me  
AG: I caught the Matrior8 instead. Isn't that that point?  
GA: I Suppose So  
GA: Ugh Turn Off Your Mobile Device The Echo Is Distracting  
  
arachnidsGrip [AG] ceased trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA]

“I’m surprised it still works out here,” Vriska said, pointedly not holding out a hand to help Kanaya up. “No network and all.”

Kanaya got up on her own. “Maybe one of the trees is actually a wi-fi router.” She held out her hands. “The Matriorb, please.”

“Right, yeah.” Vriska handed it over, and Kanaya put it back in her pack. They both looked around. “Where to?”

“From my vantage point in that highly uncomfortable tree I saw a tower in the distance; that way—” she pointed “—and a path leading toward it. There were no other significant features within my sight.”

“Well then,” Vriska said. “Let’s go see what’s there.”

They walked on into the woods, pointedly ignoring the starless void above them, where the sky should have been.

~

Cally had become used to waking up in strange places, but this was stranger than most. Nothing but trees all around her, and a black sky above. Where was the thick smog that always hung a few feet above the head? It was almost silent, too, save for a few birds and other animals that sounded almost... alive?

Not a clockwork or technomagical beast in sight. What a strange place, she thought.

Not unpleasant, though.

She sat up and brushed the dirt off her clothes. As it always did, her memories came back to her slowly. She’d found the strange spot on the wall, after much squinting, and had dived through impulsively.

She looked around. There didn’t seem to be matching portal back to her... her world? Was she on another world? Perhaps.

“Pull yourself together, dear,” she said to herself, and stood. “Let’s take a look around.”

~

Whatever it was, it was on the path in front of them and, if such a creature could be said to have a consciousness, which was always possible, Vriska thought, there’s probably all sorts in this weird world, was unconscious.

It looked for all the world like a troll—a female troll, at that—but smaller, with brown skin instead of gray, no horns, and blunt teeth. It was dressed in elaborate clothes that reminded Vriska of the sort of things typically worn by seadwellers or, if she were to be more charitable, and she saw no reason why she would be, Kanaya.

“What is it?” Kanaya said. “It looks almost like a troll.”

“It’s obviously an alien of some sort,” Vriska said. She poked the prone figure with her shoe. “It’s squishy. It’s probably not dangerous?”

“I wonder if we should try to wake it up?”

“Yeah?” Vriska shrugged. “I guess it could tell us about this place, maybe.”

“It could also leap up and eat our faces.”

“Oh come on! Does it _look_ like a face-eating monster?” Vriska poked it again. “It’s so soft, I bet I could break the skin with a claw. It’s harmless.”

“Remember Sollux?” Kanaya said, looking thoughtful and a little sad. Vriska found herself wanting to reach out to her and stamped down on the emotion: they hadn’t worked as moirails (Kanaya couldn’t keep her red feelings quiet), they hadn’t worked as lovers (Kanaya loved to meddle!), and they only barely worked as friends; the only way they could cope with each other was to retain an emotional distance and each make sure the other stayed out of trouble.

“What?” Vriska said, then she pulled herself together. “Yeah, I remember Sollux.”

“Well, he wasn’t exactly physically imposing but his psionics were impressive.” Kanaya sighed and her expression darkened a little more for a moment. “Anyway, maybe this one is like him?”

“Ha! Maybe it complains like him, too.” Vriska grinned at Kanaya but her attempt to lighten the mood backfired: Kanaya scowled at her and pushed her aside.

“Hello?” Kanaya said, crouching down and looking the unconscious thing directly in what Vriska hoped were its closed eyes. “Hello, little troll-thing?”

It moved. Twitched one of its hands—the one holding a strange little spike of wood that had it been made of sturdier material Vriska would have thought it a weapon—and then it sat up, suddenly, and looked around. Kanaya took a rapid step back, towards Vriska.

It looked at the both of them, pointed its weird little stick at Vriska—well done for identifying the dangerous one, Vriska thought—and stood up, slowly.

On the assumption that the wooden stick was indeed a weapon, Vriska drew a knife, and readied her dice in her off-hand.

“Trolls,” the alien said.

Vriska felt like she had to take the initiative. “Yes,” she said, loudly. “Trolls.” She pointed with her knife hand at herself and Kanaya, saw the confused expression on the alien’s face, and decided to repeat herself, slowly. “Tro-o-o-o-o-o-o-olls.”

“I know what trolls are,” the alien said, looking irritated. “I thought the Batterwitch hadn’t brought any of her own species here.”

“Batterwitch?” Kanaya said.

The alien backed up a bit, still pointing her little stick directly at Vriska. Vriska half-hoped they got into a fight after all; she wanted to know what it was the little alien _did_ with such a tiny weapon. Did she have super-speed or something? It certainly wasn’t suitable for parrying or even stabbing.

“I don’t know who this ‘Batterwitch’ is,” she said. “but if she really is a troll she’s not affiliated with us.” She grinned. “Why don’t you put that little stick to the test? See if you can take me down.”

The alien flicked her wrist and the next few seconds seemed to take an age to pass. The stick lit up so brightly Vriska almost had to close her eyes, and a bolt of white light shot out of the end, missing her head by inches. Kanaya growled and leaped forward, unsheathing her chainsaw, and the alien countered with a complex motion that projected some sort of bubble. Kanaya’s chainsaw bit into the shield and the alien looked ready to perform some other trick—it was a magic wand, _it was a magic fucking wand_ , and wouldn’t Vriska love to travel back to Alternia, find Eridan and taunt him about that?—when there was a _crack_ from her right loud enough to distract everyone.

Vriska looked over and, squinting through the white afterimages left by the alien’s first attack, saw a monster, green, nearly ten feet tall, pushing down trees ten times its size and charging towards them.

~

One of the windows at the front of the cottage, the one next to the front door, wasn’t put in when it was built. Jade wanted to be able to watch the path from her most comfortable chair without having to leave the front door open or employ one of her many additional sights, so she added it later, but because of this it was usually a few minutes ahead of events.

It turned out to be spectacularly useful for spotting questants coming up the path before they actually arrived, and for catching a few extra minutes of light in the mornings from the sun that wasn’t there, but shone as if it was.

Jade waited, relaxed.

~

It had been surprisingly easy to subdue the monster. For all that it was capable of felling the trees and growling and roaring in a terribly fearsome manner, it had succumbed to a shield spell and a few extremely hard blows to the back of its skull with the flat of Kanaya’s chainsaw. Vriska broke both her knives against its hide and satisfied herself with kicking it repeatedly in the face.

It lay on the ground, apparently unconscious, under a shield spell. No-one seemed prepared to put their weapons away just yet.

“Now that the immediate threat is contained, how about we start over?” the alien said. “I believe we were about to establish that you have no idea who the Batterwitch is. And I was about to apologize for attacking you. And I do apologize sincerely. From my perspective it is mere minutes since I escaped a to-the-death battle with a fearsomely overpowered troll empress. I am a little twitchy.”

“Hold on a moment, please,” Kanaya said. “You were fighting a troll empress. A fuchsiablood.”

“I was. Before you get too high an opinion of me I should state that I was losing. She had abilities I’ve never seen before.”

Vriska grinned. “She wasn’t just absurdly strong, then?” she said. “That’s pretty much their defining characteristic, fuchsiabloods, having absolutely wicked strength.”

“And a short temper,” Kanaya added.

“And usually a big tacky fork.”

“Oh my, yes, how could I forget tackiness. Next time we have this conversation with someone I vote we promote tackiness to the top of the list.”

“It seems like empresses are the same wherever you go,” the alien said.

“Yeah?” Vriska said. “What’s your squishy brown alien empress like?”

“We don’t have one. Where I’m from we had a squishy brown president. Elected. He wasn’t particularly tacky, from what I remember, although I suppose anyone would seem low-key compared to the Clown Presidents.”

Vriska moaned. “You have _clowns_ , too?”

“It’s okay, my brother killed them.”

“Yeah, but just the idea of fucking clowns being a constant... Kanaya, I’m starting to think the universe hates me personally.”

“I didn’t realize you were having subjugglator problems,” Kanaya said, frowning.

“I wasn’t until the last sweep or two. But lately I could feel their eyes on me. I couldn’t keep dodging service for ever, you know. I was going to end up dead or shackled to a boring life in the Condesce’s armies. Stealing from the fish bitch just moved my time table up a bit, that’s all.”

“How did you two end up here, then?” the alien asked. “I’m assuming you came together, from context.”

“ _I_ needed to escape and _she’s_ —” Vriska pointed at Kanaya “—laden down with contraband, so we hauled ass away from the authorities. I got out just as they were bombing my hive! A long time ago my ancestor was a pirate—the best pirate!—and she left me many things: weapons, a few ships, booty...”

“I should also note at this point that her ancestor enslaved mine,” Kanaya said, interrupting. “Regardless of our present camaraderie I wouldn’t characterize our current relationship much differently.”

“I’m hurt, Kanaya. So you tried to kiss me that one time, so what! That’s no reason we can’t stay fast friends.”

“Yes and once you tried to knife me.”

“Nowhere fatal, come on, you can’t still be complaining about that!”

“As black solicitations go it wasn’t my worst. But that makes it neither welcome nor forgiven.”

Vriska laughed. “You’d better be careful around this one, squishy brown alien, if she doesn’t kill you with her chainsaw she’ll bore you to death with her chatter.”

“She doesn’t seem like the most talkative one from where I’m standing,” the alien said, smirking, “but I’ll take your word for it.”

“Anyway, we got off topic. My ancestor, in addition to a large haul of quality pirate booty, left me detailed maps of Alternia. Quite a lot’s changed since she died but I was still able to use them to score some of the first victories of my pirating career!

“One of these maps had a small area out in the middle of nowhere scribbled out. No explanation, no, ‘Here 8e dragons!!!!!!!!’ Just this blacked out place. So of course I went to look. What I found was a hole in the side of a hill that led to tree tops. It led here! It was clearly impossible but it was also clearly a thing that was completely real.

“So I lowered myself in on the end of a rope and found this place. Kind of creepy, yeah, but also kind of not on Alternia. A perfect place to run if I ever needed to.”

“So we jumped through,” Kanaya said, “and here we are.”

“Hey, I was getting to that!”

“Yes, I know, but I’m more concerned with dealing with the giant green monster and maybe finding shelter before night falls than telling stories.”

“If this place even has a night.”

“I don’t know if you noticed,” the alien said, “but the giant green monster isn’t a giant green monster any more. It’s a sleeping girl. I was going to mention it. I was just waiting for a suitable place to interject.”

Under the rippling shield spell the creature was gone, replaced with another alien, this time with pinkish skin.

“She looks like you!” Vriska said. “But kind of a light color instead. Another species?”

“No, we come in a range of skin colors.”

“What’s the best one?”

“That depends on who you ask.”

“I’m asking you!”

“Don’t. Come on, let’s see if she’s okay.”

Kanaya held up a hand. “Before we do,” she said, “it might help if we knew each other’s names. I am Kanaya Maryam and my associate here is Vriska Serket.”

“Rose Lalonde. Pleased to meet you.”

“Yeah yeah,” Vriska said, impatient. “Let’s go look at the girl!”

~

Cally woke to concerned faces looking down at her. Well, two concerned faces and one that didn’t seem to know whether to be triumphant or disappointed.

It was that one that extended an arm and offered to help her up.

“So you’re the giant green rampaging monster, are you?” it asked.

“Oh dear. Did I rampage much?”

“Barely at all,” said the other one that looked similar.

“Mostly you fell down and stayed down,” said the reassuringly human-looking one.

“Well isn’t that a relief! I’m Cally, by the way.”

“Vriska,” the first speaker said. “That one’s called Kanaya and the one that looks a bit like you is called Rose.” Then she turned to the other human. “Hey that’s a point, if she’s like you does that mean you can turn into a giant monster, too?”

“Some days it feels like an effort to maintain just this shape,” Rose replied, “let alone any additional ones. But, no, my skillset did not stretch to quadrupling my size and greenness attributes.”

Cally’s head was swimming. “I’m very confused! Who exactly are you people—beyond names, I mean—and where are we?”

“Why don’t we start with your story,” Kanaya said. “And perhaps we should walk while you tell it. I am not altogether comfortable with the idea of finding out what these woods contain at night.”

The four of them fell into a vague diamond shape and started off through the woods.

“There is not all that much to tell, really! For a while I felt like I was being haunted by this strange monster that lurked in the shadows. Then, when I began losing time, I started to suspect that maybe it had a hold of me somehow, that it wasn’t just my imagination!”

She shuddered at the memory.

“None of the magicians and practitioners in my city believed me. I was desperate. I’d heard of a strange place, a portal to another world, and I was scared enough to try anything. So i jumped through, and here I am.”

“Hey, Lalonde,” Vriska said, grinning. “You never told us how you got here.”

“I lost a fight with an evil baking heiress slash fish princess, and then was teleported here by a cat.”

“Aren’t you glad you asked,” Kanaya said.

Vriska looked back at Cally. “So what’s with the monster? Can you control it? Or is it made of all your rage or hunger or boredom or something lame like that?”

“I can’t control it! I wasn’t even certain I actually turned into anything until i came here and you literally said, if you remember, ‘So you’re the giant rampaging monster, are you?’”

Rose said, “If that was a moment of revelation for you, you took it very calmly.”

“Thanks, but I’ve had time to get used to the idea. Why are we all even here, anyway? Together? Do you think it’s a quest?”

“Hardly,” Vriska scoffed. “Out of all of us only Kanaya can say she’s got a quest. The rest of us are just running from our problems.”

Rose frowned. “I would very much like to get back to my problem, thank you. And possibly beat it over the head with a tree branch.”

“Wouldn’t she just kill you though,” said Kanaya.

“She’s destroying my world! Killing people by the billion! I can’t just let her. Someone had to stand up to her.” Rose lifted her chin up. “Even if I die. It will mean someone stood up to her.”

“Sounds like a good way to go to me,” Vriska said.

“Not to me!” Cally said, horrified.

“So if we’re not on a quest,” Kanaya said, thoughtfully, “and honestly I can’t imagine why that would be the first thing anyone thought of, then why are we all here? Together at once, I mean.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Vriska grinned that unsettling grin again. “Luck!”

~

“They’re coming up the path,” the crow said, “and you should know they’re bickering like teenagers.”

“At least one of them is a teenager,” Jade said. “And possibly the trolls are? I’m never quite sure how it works with them.”

“Don’t you know all and see all?”

“Some. Enough. But definitely not all, no!” Jade made shooing motions at her familiar. “Now get out of here, I need to put the food out.”

“Need I remind you,” the bird said, “and I don’t need to remind you because I can see that you know but it’s so absurd I’m going to mention it anyway, that literally the only food you have is cheese? What if one of them is lactose intolerant?”

“I have bread. Look!” Jade said, and then took a swing at him with a loaf. “Except, don’t look, leave! Go on. I don’t need your prattle when I’m witching.”

The crow gave Jade a reproachful look—at least, Jade read it as reproachful, but really it was just a head tilt and a certain stance to its wings—then stole a hunk of bread and was out of the window before she could swipe at it again. Jade considered chasing after it and retrieving the bread, but the visitors were nearly there, and it would do nothing for her mystique to be seen running around like that; anyway it’d do the bird a bit of good if sometimes she didn’t engage with the ironic wisecracking familiar routine it’d been subjecting her to for the last couple of decades. It’s possible it was beginning to wear thin.

Instead she sat heavily in her favorite chair and waited for the questants to round the corner and see the cottage. Then she kicked the pin under the chair that released the rope attached to the counterweight and the front door swung open, just like magic.

At the last second she remembered one of the questants was a version of Rose Lalonde, and quickly changed her apparent age from mid-forties to over one hundred. That she was a Jade Harley could come up casually in conversation but it didn’t do to start the whole thing off with that kind of confusing revelation.

There they were: a version of Rose in her early thirties leading the pack, a couple of trolls of indeterminate age who appeared to be having a _sotto voce_ argument, and a teenage girl bringing up the rear, clasping her hands and looking nervous. Jade’s heart, a generous organ even at its worst, broke.

When she was quite certain they’d seen the door open on its own, she stood up from her chair—even when she was appearing to be very old she never moved like an old person, and when the discrepancy was pointed out to her she insisted that it only added to the mystery for a centenarian to get about as casually as a teenager—and opened her arms in welcome.

~

Vriska and the others were ushered into a tiny, run-down cottage—a cottage that seemed to be a little bigger on the inside than on the outside—by an old woman who looked to be the same species as Lalonde and Cally, although she was yet another skin color: a mid-brown, compared to Lalonde’s darker brown and Callie’s sort of vanilla coloring. Humans, that’s what Lalonde had said they were called, humans who were small and squishy and weak and seemed to have no compensation for this except perhaps for nicer hair.

Vriska’s hair had reduced Kanaya almost to tears on one occasion, and Kanaya’s combs and brushes to pieces on several more. Until today, it hadn’t bothered her. Now she found herself eyeing Lalonde with a frustration that only increased with every bit of interest Kanaya showed in the human.

“Welcome,” the old woman said. “Please come in, sit down, and something to eat! You can call me the witch, and I’m here to show you the path.”

“We just came from the path,” Vriska said, allowing herself to be seated. “We’ve seen it and it’s not exactly interesting.”

“You took the path in!” said the witch. “What you now need is the path out. And you’ll never find it without me.”

Vriska bristled. “Is that a threat?”

“It’s a fact. Don’t worry! It’s easy. I’ll speak to each of you in turn and the rest of you can eat. Would you like to go first, Cally?”

Cally looked startled. “What exactly are you going to do?” she said.

“We’re going to look at all of you! Every little tiny piece of you.”

“Will it be painful?”

“Only existentially!”

Then the old woman took the girl’s hands, and they both went very still.

~

CALLY: Um, hello?  
CALLY: is there anyone here?  
CALLY: i was jUst sitting at the table with my new friends.  
CALLY: and now i am nowhere.  
CALLY: i do not bloody like this! i do not like being alone!  
JADE: woah hold up youre not alone!!  
JADE: it just takes me a moment to catch up  
JADE: we are in the void you see  
JADE: but you go to your own void and i have to find you! :)  
CALLY: why can't i see anything?  
JADE: because you need to bring your own light  
JADE: everyone comes here in darkness  
JADE: even me! :p  
CALLY: i think i'm hyperventilating!  
JADE: you cant do that here  
JADE: its like a dream! :)  
CALLY: I THINK I'M DREAM HYPERVENTILATING!  
JADE: ok ok shoooosh  
JADE: hold out your hand  
JADE: let me find you  
CALLY: yoU don't Understand! it's dark here! it's too dark!  
JADE: its not completely dark you know  
JADE: once your eyes adjust youll see what this is all floating in  
CALLY: no i won't becaUse i have my EYES CLOSED!  
CALLY: i don't want to see it.  
CALLY: it comes in the dark.  
CALLY: and it takes me over.  
JADE: shoooosh  
JADE: hold my hand  
JADE: hold my hand and tell me about the monster  
CALLY: it's a big, green, Ugly brUte, and i hate it!  
JADE: tell me something else about it  
JADE: forget how it looks  
JADE: what does it do?  
CALLY: it makes me forget things.  
CALLY: or, never experience them?  
CALLY: it takes time from me, and when i come to i am always in a strange place.  
JADE: ok  
JADE: take a nice deep breath  
JADE: and tell me about yourself  
CALLY: aboUt me?  
CALLY: there really is nothing to tell aboUt me.  
CALLY: i am jUst cally. and that's the end of the story.  
JADE: i dont think it is  
JADE: i think theres something else  
JADE: did you open your eyes yet?  
CALLY: no!  
CALLY: it will find me and then i will be gone!  
JADE: i can protect you  
JADE: i promise!  
JADE: but you must trust me  
CALLY: yoU really can keep me safe?  
JADE: yes  
JADE: i pinkie swear it!!!  
CALLY: mysterioUs witches who live in ramshackle cottages in strange fantasy lands... pinkie swear? :U  
JADE: the cool ones do!  
JADE: and im clearly the coolest  
JADE: you havent seen my cool bird  
JADE: he would vouch for me  
CALLY: i think yoU may well be the first person ever to cite a cool bird as a character reference  
JADE: not quite the first  
JADE: were a select group :p  
JADE: now cally  
JADE: will you open your eyes for me?  
CALLY: yes.  
CALLY: yes i think i will.  
CALLY: BLOODY HELL IT'S RIGHT BEHIND YOU!  
JADE: and yet you are still in front of me!  
JADE: you are safe  
JADE: didnt i promise?  
CALLY: ...  
CALLY: yes. yes, yoU promised.  
JADE: theres something you need to know about the universes cally  
JADE: there are thousands!  
JADE: and in these thousands of universes certain patterns recur  
JADE: certain people?  
CALLY: yoU mean alternate Universes? other versions of me that made other choices?  
JADE: not exactly!  
JADE: more like........ other versions of you who were GIVEN other choices  
JADE: different planets different times even different species  
JADE: its because of the game  
JADE: its so messy, it spits out universes like pumpkin seeds, and some of them become real  
JADE: really real like the one you come from  
JADE: and some just stay ideas, like my woods!  
JADE: but the thing about the game is games are played  
JADE: by people  
JADE: and those people, they kind of get spat out too!  
CALLY: like pUmpkin seeds?  
JADE: yes  
JADE: they play the game and become part of it  
JADE: and a version of you played the game too  
JADE: but this version of you was different  
JADE: she had a twin brother, a monster who lived inside her and came out when she was sleeping  
JADE: and that monster when he took over started smashing up the voids where the universes live!  
JADE: i think an idea of him got into you  
JADE: when you were very young  
CALLY: i'm getting really scared, now!  
JADE: its ok  
JADE: its going to be ok  
JADE: just hold my hands really tight!  
JADE: as tight as you can!  
JADE: and look down  
CALLY: what's happening? why do i have GREEN CLAWS?  
JADE: the monster is in you  
JADE: the monster is you  
JADE: but you are still in control  
JADE: look at me cally  
JADE: im not always an old woman  
JADE: sometimes im just like you!  
JADE: see?  
JADE: im a teenager now like you!  
JADE: there are a lot of me out there and theres a lot of you out there too  
JADE: and i promise you that somewhere in that sea of universes is a you who beat the monster  
JADE: you can be her!  
JADE: she can be you!  
CALLY: jUst like yoU are a hUndred years old? and also a teenage girl with doggy ears.  
JADE: yes!  
JADE: just like that :)  
JADE: remember the monster in you is only a shadow  
JADE: a remnant  
JADE: you are stronger! find that other you! see her strength!  
JADE: make it your own!  
CALLY: how do i know i can even do it?  
JADE: because i am a sixteen year old girl with doggy ears  
JADE: and you are currently a huge monster with vicious claws  
JADE: and you are holding my hands and you havent even scratched me

~

“That’s strange,” Vriska said, through a mouthful of really quite good cheese. “For a second it looked like the Cally kid was the monster again. And then she wasn’t.” 

~

ROSE: Quite the featureless void you've got here.  
ROSE: I like the writhing tentacles barely visible in the corners of my eyes. They have a sort of olde worlde charm I find quite appealing.  
JADE: im glad you like it!  
ROSE: Nice doggy ears.  
JADE: dang  
JADE: i forgot to change back  
ROSE: You still look eerily like Jade English, though.  
JADE: ugh i was hoping you wouldnt notice  
JADE: i didnt want to confuse things!  
ROSE: I was teleported here by a magical cat. I decided shortly after I arrived here, wherever here is, or was, to leave confusion at the back of my mind, to be dealt with later.  
ROSE: If there's time.  
ROSE: So are you THE Jade English?  
JADE: one of them!  
JADE: there is no THE jade english  
JADE: although fyi most of us are jade harley!  
JADE: including me :p  
ROSE: A pleasure to make your acquaintance.  
ROSE: So, what is the purpose of this fantastical tentaclescape?  
JADE: we need to find you a new path!  
JADE: the one youre on now has no future  
ROSE: Well, no, I imagine not. I intend at the earliest convenience to return to my world, confront the Batterwitch, and attempt to stick my wands in her eyes. Taking on troll sea queens is a tricky business, with which a long and healthy lifespan is not typically associated.  
JADE: thats just the point!  
JADE: youre throwing your life away in an empty gesture  
JADE: you could still do good somewhere else  
JADE: anywhere else!!  
ROSE: I'm not sure I have the most marketable skillset, though. I can write bestselling novels and throw arcs of pure white fire.  
ROSE: Do you have a PR department? Perhaps I could write commercials for your pathfinding venture.  
ROSE: "Come see the old witch who is also a young furry and apparently an alternate version of someone from history with whom you have always felt a curious connection!"  
JADE: thats a bit specific  
ROSE: Come now. That was just a sample. I don't give out the good stuff for free.  
JADE: would it help if i told you everything works out ok?  
ROSE: That depends. How general a statement are you planning to make? Everything works out okay as in the cosmic fireball engines keep churning out bouncing baby universes? Or everything works out okay as in five minutes after I left the Batterwitch slipped on an amusing piece of discarded fruit and accidentally forked herself somewhere unfortunate?  
JADE: i mean yes she kills everyone else on the planet  
JADE: and rules for hundreds of years unopposed  
ROSE: If this is your sales pitch you definitely need some decent PR.  
JADE: but then your daughter is born  
ROSE: My daughter.  
JADE: dont you know?  
JADE: havent you seen?  
ROSE: I don't exactly see certainties. I made preparations. I hoped.  
ROSE: Tell me.  
ROSE: What is she like.  
JADE: she is a miracle  
JADE: and she is ok  
JADE: she meets another version of you  
JADE: and another dave  
JADE: another me  
JADE: together they change everything  
ROSE: But she's okay, though?  
ROSE: No final sacrifice? No heroic death?  
JADE: roxys fine  
JADE: i promise  
ROSE: Roxy.  
ROSE: My Roxy.  
ROSE: Okay.  
ROSE: I'll do it.  
JADE: do what?  
ROSE: Whatever you think I should do.  
JADE: thats not really how this works?  
JADE: you need to find your path  
ROSE: I'm done with all that. I don't need a path any more.  
ROSE: Maybe I'll follow someone else.  
ROSE: Just...  
ROSE: Would you mind if I stayed here just a few minutes longer?  
ROSE: And would you stay with me?  
JADE: as long as you need

~

VRISKA: Hey what's this horseshit?  
VRISKA: I can't see a thing!  
VRISKA: Is this the place where we do my destiny thing or whatever? 8ecause it sucks!!!!!!!!  
JADE: yes we are doing the destiny thing!  
JADE: which is funny because you dont have one  
VRISKA: Hey! I'm the descendent of Marquise Spinneret Mindfang, the gr8est pir8 to ever live!  
JADE: and?  
JADE: what does that mean now youre on the run?  
VRISKA: I don't know, it means I've got to find a whole new place to ro8 and plunder?  
VRISKA: And where's Maryam anyway? I thought I'd 8e doing this thing with her?  
JADE: kanayas got a path!  
JADE: that round ball shes been carrying around? the thing thats going to start a new troll civilization away from the condesce?  
VRISKA: How do you know all this?  
JADE: how do i live in a cottage thats slightly bigger on the inside?  
VRISKA: Why do I even need a path or a destiny or whatever? Can't I just 8e me?  
JADE: is there a you?  
JADE: you spent your childhood feeding other trolls to your lusus because it was the thing to do  
JADE: you battled seadouches in stripy trousers because it was the thing to do  
JADE: you carried around your ancestors weapon and her name because it was the thing to do  
JADE: but these are just things youve done  
JADE: terrible things of course!  
JADE: who is vriska serket?  
JADE: and dont tell me a story!  
VRISKA: This is fucking perfect.  
VRISKA: You can't take all that away and then tell me to define myself. And I don't care who you think I am?  
JADE: im not asking because i want to know!  
JADE: youre an abhorrent person vriska serket  
JADE: thats who you are  
JADE: youre not your ancestor  
JADE: youre not your flarp character  
JADE: you are someone who takes choices from other people because you think you know best  
JADE: what i want from you right now is to admit that you DONT  
JADE: and never have  
JADE: you let a mixture of tradition blood obligation and arrogance overwhelm whatever moral center you might once have had the chance to develop  
VRISKA: What the h8ll do y8u kn8w????????  
JADE: i know because ive seen every vriska  
JADE: and you have it in you to be someone better  
JADE: kanayas offering you a new start  
JADE: shes taking you to a new world of new trolls  
JADE: a world where there are no traditions and no blood obligations  
JADE: the only thing that will let you be as vicious as you want  
JADE: is you  
JADE: look at me  
JADE: LOOK AT ME!!  
VRISKA: I'm looking, ok?  
VRISKA: And yeah I get it I G8T 8T.  
VRISKA: You're wrong a8out me, though. I didn't do those things 8ecause of tradition. I did them 8ecause I wanted to!  
VRISKA: And I was good at them, too.  
VRISKA: 8ut if I'm going to a new world.  
VRISKA: I don't have to do those things again.  
VRISKA: That would 8e 8oring!  
VRISKA: And pointless. What does a new world full of new trolls need with a pir8?  
VRISKA: So........ You get your way. I'll do something different next time.  
VRISKA: May8e I'll even listen to Fussyfangs.  
VRISKA: 8ut it won't 8e 8ecause I was ever an "a8horrent person" who's now trying to make amends. I was always the right person for the right time.  
VRISKA: And times change.

~

“Would you look at that!” Vriska said. “The path continues past the tower after all.”

“I don’t think it was there before,” Rose said. “I’m sure I would have noticed.”

“It was always there,” said Kanaya, “and I was going to mention it but then the thing with the cheese witch happened and you all started falling asleep.”

“Just be glad you didn’t!” Cally said.

“So, no more big green monster?” Rose said.

“I don’t know.” Cally smiled. “Maybe sometimes. When I want him.”

“Where does the path go, anyway?” said Vriska.

“I heard her mumbling while you were all having your strange, possibly cheese-induced nightmares,” Kanaya said. “I think it goes wherever we need it to go.”

“Well, where’s that?”

“I personally would quite like a world with lots of sun, and no large predators to eat the grubs.”

“That sounds nice,” Cally said.

“Yes.” Rose smiled. “Maybe we’ll join you.” 


End file.
